


Silver Clouds, Grey Lining

by Belfire



Series: With Family Like This Who Needs Joker? [2]
Category: Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Curiosity, Grandmas who run gangs, Jason needs to learn to mind his own business, Jason's screwed up family, Mild Pedophilia, especially when it's family, even if it technically is his business, flasback scenes, muggings & Batman, naturally, oh and there's teething involved, pissed off dads & angry grandmas who hate each other, some things are secret for reasons, undesirable encounters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-10-13 07:27:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17483792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Belfire/pseuds/Belfire
Summary: Fuck, Jason still couldn't believe who he was related to but he intended to find out why he had never been told. From the start, he didn't care about knowing this was a bad idea.





	1. Little Red Riding Hood & His Elderly Granny

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pennyforyourthought](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pennyforyourthought/gifts).



> *reads the latest RHATO issue & bursts through your skylight with this fic, pulling off a perfect superhero landing*
> 
> "Take this! Take this and read it before DC entirely ruins the message this story's predecessor has worked 90,094 words for!"
> 
> Also, this is gifted to pennyforyourthought, who showed me a lot of support and left amazing comments on "In The Shadows Of Burned Bridges". They were among the first legends, as I recall, who warmed up to Willis. 
> 
> Further more, this'll make no sense unless you've read the aforementioned fic.

_"Waahhh!!!"_

_The shrill sound akin to an air raid siren going off tore through Willis' aching brain, lids batting slowly open in response, giving him an eye-full of the pitch dark room and blaring red digital numbers of the alarm clock on the bedside table, announcing in migraine-inducing dullness that it was 03:02 am. Two hours before he had to get up for work and every bit of his over-exhausted being begged for him not to wake up and gather the rare bits of fleeting rest that he could, but the crying baby in the next room wasn't something he could ignore. Bed creaking, Willis gathered his arms beneath himself and with a flat groan, pushed up, crumpled covers falling off while he did. From beside him, he heard Catherine shift, curling into a tighter ball than she already was, coppery hair strewn across the pillow. She was cold, probably coming down with the flu again after her immune system was reduced to virtually nil by the drugs she never stopped taking. He eyed her sadly, wishing he could somehow make it better when another piercing shriek reminded him of where his priorities lay right now. Willis grabbed the blanket and spread it over her, tucking it in around her body and snuck quietly into the hall, stifling a yawn with his balled up fist._

_He padded silently along the short distance to his son's room, eyelids drooping and his neck feeling incapable of keeping his head up, but a six-month-old baby didn't care about how he was running his father to an early grave or how his hair was turning grey at the age of twenty-four. Willis was convinced he had more grey hairs than a silverback gorilla._

_Blocking another yawn against his hand, Willis pushed open his baby's bedroom door and came in. The crying originated from the crib and even before he came close to it, he could see little arms waving in the air and the baby tossing among his covers. The room itself was dark, say for the few beams of dull light from the streetlights outside that managed it through the blinds, but Willis was no stranger to navigating his apartment in the dark - especially after Jason came along - and in a few strides was there to pick up the fussing baby. But first, he was going to try his luck in getting him to go back to sleep. He put the fallen pacifier back in the baby's open mouth and took one tiny flailing hand, his enveloping it, gently stroking his son's skin with his thumb._

_" Shh, Jason. Go back to sleep. Please." He didn't mean to sound so needy with the plea, but it was exactly how desperate he felt. He hadn't slept for more than two hours uninterrupted in eight weeks and it was beginning to show in his dull sunken in dark circled eyes. He found his patience was considerably less these days too, withered to zilch with the sleepless nights and eighteen-hour shifts during the day._

_Jason wasn't pacified, he kept screaming red-faced, the intensity of his sobs choking him as he flailed his tiny arms._

_Willis gave a pained sigh._

_The first few times he picked Jason up at the hospital, he was quickly scolded by a nurse for merely wrapping his hands around the baby's body then corrected on proper technique. At this point, it was second nature the way he gently slid his palm beneath Jason's head and slotted his other to support his spine when lifting him against his shoulder._

_"Shh..." Willis soothed with a long exhale, staring tiredly at the wall while Jason continued on crying, though his sobs were turning in to a quiet whimpering, tears and saliva soaking into his father's shirt and running down his shoulder before long. A long whimper from the fussing baby, one that shuddered near the end of it. Two brussel sprout sized fists wrapped around the fabric of his shirt and a small thunk gave away that the pacifier had fallen. Jason began to suck on his shirt, moisture seeping through in seconds._

_Again, Willis sighed. But anything to keep Jason mediocrely happy._

_He kept bouncing Jason to calm him, which was working until the moment he stopped and Jason lost it the second Willis tried lowering him back into his crib. He screeched like an exorcism was taking place and thrashed from side to side, making a gloriously riled up scene until Willis got the unspoken but screamed hint, and picked him up again._

_Having won, Jason gave him the prize of silver by snottily sniffling into his neck._

_" You're gonna be the death of me, you know that, kid?" Willis asked and of course, got no reply, spit slowly sliding down his shoulder blade. Soon, he felt the hard dull edges of something so small it was easy to miss, gnawing away at his flesh. Frown creasing his forehead, Willis extended his arms, holding the baby at a small distance where their eyes met, his lethargic and drained of light, Jason's miserable, tear-filled and pained._

_" Are you...?" Willis began, settling Jason in the crook of his arm and tentatively, carefully, reaching into his mouth - where drool was pooling - and gliding the tip of his index along his son's sensitive gums._

_"... Teething?"_

_Yes, indeed, there in Jason's mouth were two tiny pinkish white nubs, covered by a film of flesh so thin the teeth were visible through. His gums were bright explosion-red and swollen, painful as hell by the looks of it. Willis studied them, those sweet little things, with logic-defying intensity until Jason's whimpery mewl snapped him out of it. Again, he was looking at Jason's sticky-with-tears and blotched up face and Jason looked back like he was expecting something he had no idea existed._

_Jason's hand flailed clumsily, lacking for coordination, until it found him and enlaced his finger, holding it firmly as if the fate of the world relied on his grip never wavering. Gazing down at him, Willis smiled a small, tired smile, relieved to now understand the problem. Now he could do something about it._

_" Let's go get you some medicine, eh, baby?" He nestled Jason as comfortably as he could in his arm and headed out of the bedroom. On the way to the kitchen, he checked on his wife, still asleep and looking as sickly as ever, the sight of her making him bite down deep on his lip in worry._

_He'd tried to get her to stop using many times in the past. Do it for each other, y'know? For the baby? Nothing helped and he guessed he was in no position to speak against her drug use when he'd been high pretty much every day since age eleven. But six months ago, that changed. And that six-month-old turnabout card had started to cry again, prompting Willis to rummage through the kitchen cupboards faster, in search of the teething gel his sister had told him to buy for Jason. Apparently, it did wonders when her daughter, Faye, was teething._

_Frustrated by coming up empty, he sighed loudly and shut the cupboard doors, brow furrowed in thought. Where the fuck had he left it? While he tried to figure that out, the fabric of his shirt was growing a wet warm patch by how furiously Jason was sucking on it, mewling and tearing up as he did._

_Willis let him go on with that when he remembered Jason's aunt telling him to keep the gel refrigerated, otherwise, it would do no good. The bright yellow light of the fridge damn near blinded him when he opened the door and he snatched the tube of Teetha as fast as he could. Armed with it, he went into the living room and switched the lights on despite the glare on his unaccustomed eyes. He'd get over it soon._

_" Alrighty, kid," Willis said when he and the baby were settled on the couch. He'd never done this before and wanted to make sure there was no chance he would drop Jason while he tried to figure out the ropes. Couldn't be that hard, could it? It's just teething gel._

_" Let's.. umm..." How much was he supposed to use? Sister never told him, but maybe that was because this was supposed to be so simple? Well, fuck simple since this was not it._

_"Mmwhm...." Jason whined pitifully, waving one arm, big bluey-green eyes welling again. Damn the hypnotic effect the baby had, Willis dropped the notion of hows and whys and decided to wing it. He squeezed a dollop of the cool gel onto his finger and carefully slid it into his son's mouth, pooling with saliva as he spread it along his swollen hot gums. Jason worked his jaw a little as if he was sampling what he was just given and when he didn't like it, he pulled a face and by the quiver of his lower lip, was threatening his dear old dad with another fit of wailing._

_Willis groaned in sheer torment and the raging headache of his, thinking this night could get no more agonising than it was now, but god never got his fill of screwing with his assumptions and general life, and of course, that's when a knock hit the front door. Someone was knocking. At... what time even was it? Whatever it was, it was way too fucking late for this._

_Willis wasn't about to bother opening the door when the knock came again, startling his baby and Jason started whimpering the way he did seconds before he broke into a full-fledged screaming session._

_"No, Jay," He popped the pale blue pacifier into Jason's gaping mouth. "Please don't. I'll do anything if you-"_

_Bang!_

_That sounded like an actual fist hitting the door's surface and Jason started shrieking from the fright it gave him. Willis was quite certain his eardrums burst from the close proximity they were at. Grumbling aggressive profanities Jason was too little to understand or remember to ask him about on a later date, Willis went to see who the fuck thought trying to break into his home and scare his baby was a good idea and when he checked who the smartass was through the peephole, it all suddenly made sense._

_He held Jason's small body against his shoulder with one hand while he opened the various locks begrudgingly, not at all pleased to see the middle-aged woman on the other side. She seemed much less pleased than he when her steely grey eyes fixed on him, silent judgement to every aspect of him evident._

_"What the hell do you want, mother?"_

_With a curt face, she extended a brown cardboard file._

_"I have a job for you."_

* * *

 

" _Soo_  what's this place again?" Willis asked, turning in a circle to examine his son's -  _Red Hood's_ current hideout, the place from which he and his two associates operated out of. Bizarro and Artemis, he recalls their names were. An Amazon and Superman's clone, of all things. Jason certainly had friend's in unlikely places.

"It's a currently outta commission reform school for troubled teen boys, but actually it conditions them into criminals. I was here for a bit back in the day." Jason explained, absent as he disassembled his guns on the computer table and cleaned every bit of them with a piece of pipe cleaner. He worked methodically, like there was no more important of a task for him to do, and with crime in the city at a record low and his teammates elsewhere for the day, Willis supposed  there wasn't.

"Why is your headquarters here, exactly?"

"Cause the owner's a manipulative old bitch who owes me." Jason cocked his gun while he spoke and shut one eye to stare down the barrel.

"I saved her life from Black Mask, so she lets me camp out here." He added just in time to stem Willis' flow of questions concerning how and why and when. Quietly, he watched Jason work, so careful and precise, surveying from a distance until he came a little closer.

"I'm still getting used to your secret double life thing." Willis admitted when he stood by Jason, continuing to observe him fiddling with firearm parts that he himself couldn't even begin to name.

"I'm still getting used to having two dads." Jason fired back with his trademark cocky grin, flashing it lopsidedly but enough to reveal those teeth Willis was put through hell for. He briefly thought back on the whole teething gel incident before replying,

"Yeah, well, you don't have to keep seeing Wayne. Just sayin'."

"But then who will I complain about you to?" Amusement played merrily in his tone, the sort of over-confident type of undertow to his voice and Willis took a second to process that.  _Really_? Jason regularly complained of his adoptive father aloud to him about topics that sounded vastly exaggerated, but he hadn't thought it went both ways.

He wasn't so lucky that it wouldn't.

But he did manage a smile regardless of who his son ranted about him to.

"Got me there, kid."

"Naturally." Jason tipped his head in acknowledgement to his own smart wording. It was clear to see, how he was pleased with himself over something as small as this. Wayne likely never gave him the tidbit of winning a conversation or even playful argument. Willis certainly wouldn't either, if this wasn't his kid.

Anything more they might have had to say was interrupted by a series of light footfalls descending the stairs. Jason didn't think anything of it, didn't do so much as turn to see who it was, but on instinct, Willis did and.... he was fucking  _horrified_  when cold judgemental silver eyes bore wordless holes into him.

 **HOW**.  **WAS SHE....?**

"Oh my  _fucking_  god." Willis groaned, not remembering when his hand rose to cover his open mouth or when seeing the old crone made him tremble a little. Jason - hearing him - turned in his chair to stare him in both concern and curiosity.

"What's wrong, dad?" He asked and darling that she was, Ma Gunn didn't let Willis explain a thing to  _his_  son and went right ahead with those liberties she thought she had.

"Your father is just stalling because he never thought he'd have to see me again." She coolly said, arms folded across her narrow chest, flattened with age and she attenuated her gaze behind her half-moon glasses, wrinkles shifting to form a deeper set glare.

"And for good reason, you old bitch." Willis snapped back at her. "I should have known you were running this whole fucking thing!"

"Some of us choose to accomplish in life, Willis." Ma Gunn's bony claw-like fingers tightened around her folded arms, the corner of her lip twitching in her displeasure of seeing him.

" _Accomplish_? By that do you mean turning boys like my son into criminals?"

"Oh  _please_ ," Ma scoffed, "you can't blame me for that when it's your rotten genetics that gave him his trouble streak."

"And who can we thank for my  _rotten genetics_ -?"

"Uhm, dad, Ma," Jason looked between them, utterly perplexed. "Do you guys know each other?"

"Yes, actually," She said, about to open her mouth and reveal that minor thing Willis had kept from his boy for his entire life.

"Jason,  _do not_ listen to her." Willis tried to stop him hearing but by then it was too late; Jason's interests had been peaked. He rose from his seat and came to stand amongst them, pretty much dwarfing them with his intimidating six feet of stature.

" _Jason_ ," Willis tried one last time to warn him that he wouldn't want to know when  _she_  got to Jason first.

"I'm his unfortunate mother, Jason." Ma said and may as well have slapped Jason for the shock that put him in; his jaw nearly hit the floor.

Sighing forcefully, Willis pinched the bridge of his nose, white-knuckled. His jaw was set painfully hard. This wasn't happening. It couldn't be.

"Wh -  _what_?" Jason gaped. " _Really_? You - you're my dad's  _mom_? My -  _my grandma_?"

Ma nodded, grim. " _Unfortunately_. It was too late to get an abortion when I came to my senses about him." 

"Thank you for that,  _mother_." Willis sarcastically bit, already reaching to his side, groping thin air until he found Jason's forearm and gripped it.

"C'mon, son. We're going."

"Dad, I-"

" _No_. I don't want you anywhere near her. She's poisonous." Willis pulled Jason and although it would have been easy for him to dig his heels in, he must have seen how worked up his father was and respected his wishes by coming along.

Ma stared after with those ever-prying eyes of hers, menacing as a dormant volcano, but didn't say anything; her displeasure was evident enough without words. 

Once they were outside the horrible  _reformatory_  school,  Jason glanced at him, cautious but curious.

"You didn't tell me  _Faye Gunn_  is your mom." He said, his surprise had faded to a tone of voice that was closer to approval than Willis liked. Jason was  _impressed_. God, he was suddenly so tired, his mother able to drain the life out of him even after nearly eighteen years of not seeing her. 

When Willis didn't reply, Jason kept pushing and truth be told, couldn't really be blamed for having questions.

"She took care of me for a bit, you know. When you were away."

"Yes, I know." Willis darkly said, that fact one he'd never been happy for but he could do fuck all to change it. The only silver lining about it was that it kept Jason off the streets for a spell.

"I know Ma's kinda hard to get along with, but how come you two are all cats and dogs with each other?"

"I don't want to talk about it, Jason." Willis truthfully stated, getting a migraine just from thinking about all of this. Jason fell quiet after, again accepting that he didn't want to discuss this or linger in Ma's undesirable company. 

 _Fuckkkkk_. Willis wanted nothing more than for him and his son to forget that damn encounter.

* * *

 

_"Come on, Jason." Willis sighed at their pace underneath his breath, holding onto the tiny hand curled around his finger. The one-year-old took a tediously slow step, then another, and a third before Willis could take a single, after which he paused again to let his son catch up. Jason relied entirely on holding onto his father or he'd fall. They'd get where they were going much faster if he could carry Jason, only he started fussing whenever it was attempted. He really wanted to toddle down the street today._

_"Da..." Jason waved at something off to the side; a parked car that Willis acknowledged with a hum. They didn't make it a meter before Jason had to point something else out that Willis regarded with less enthusiasm when he knew they were going to be really late to Jason's routine one-year checkup. Something had to give. He scooped Jason up, sat him on his hip and the boy didn't wait for a stride to start voicing his protests._

_"Dow, dow, dow-"_

_"No, Jason," Willis sighed, "you're not going down right now." Jason wasn't much for speaking, but he understood certain words with crystal clarity and no was his least favourite one. He scrunched up his delicate features and proved this wasn't mindless on his part when he gave his dad a second to realise and correct his wrongdoing - one he didn't take - before he started mewling. All but having to jog at this point, Willis did his best not to cave to the method his child had perfected to transform him into a willing servant. He had a very hard time ignoring the crying, fake though he knew it was._

_By some miracle, they made it to the appointment only a little late and the doctor brushed it aside because she had mercy in her. She was nice and all, but experience had engraved an eternal wariness of female doctors into him._

_Once the examination was done and Jason was playing with a firetruck on the sterilised floor, Leslie explained to Willis how his son was developmentally months behind his peers when it came to walking, talking and general motor skills. He was premature, of course, Jason was somewhat stunted. She recommended physical therapy that would cost money he certainly didn't have._

_He left the clinic knowing he either had to beg for extra gigs from Two-Face or swallow his pride and ask his mother for help, who he hadn't spoken to in months. She wouldn't give him raw cash even if it was solely to benefit her grandson, but if he played his cards right, she may throw a couple jobs at him._

_Not a soul was stirring in the late hours, the city streets descended into darkness when Jason was drifting off, head pillowed against his shoulder. Willis didn't linger around when Gotham was a dangerous place come nighttime and normally, he wouldn't mind, but he also had a twelve-month-old baby with him._

_Willis was running laps in his head, trying to navigate the haze of stress and anxiety to figure out this whole physical therapy thing when,_

_"Out a little late, aren't you?" The gruff voice came from behind him, nearing at an increasing crawl and he knew better than to stall or look to see who it was; he tightened his arms around his son and walked faster than before. A man - another one - stepped onto the sidewalk in front of him and this time, Willis did pause since this was a textbook Gothamite ambush, and there was another guy in the alley to his left, hidden but only for now. If he tried getting away, he was dead._

_Willis sighed when they circled him, all hulking men with cocky grins. The guy in front had a sawed-off shotgun raised in line with his chest, but that's not what he thought of. No, Willis' immediate and terrified realisation was that it was trained on Jason, who remained enviably oblivious to what was going on. He shifted his son off to his side as his eyes travelled warily between them._

_"Let me guess," Willis said, displeased an understatement, "give you all my money or you'll shoot?"_

_"That's the drill." The shot-gun wielder grinned, voice thick and raspy by years of cheap cigars and liquor._

_"Then you're outta luck, I don't carry cash around with me." In Gotham, you'd have to be retarded to have any small or large quantity of valuables with you and that was a lesson Willis had taken to heart, however, he feared it may not help him tonight. These people weren't in a playing mood._

_"Is that so?"_

_"It's so."_

_The man pursed his lips in consideration for just a heartbeat then tipped his head._

_"Check 'im."_

_Before Willis could do a thing, the person he'd anticipated to be in the alley lunged out of it, grabbed him roughly around the arm and all but threw him into the brick wall with a gasp of pain. Next, multiple hands wrapped around him to pin him against it as if they were expecting a fight from him. Ordinarily, if he hadn't had Jason with him, they could have. Willis struggled but only to not drop his fussing son while they manhandled him, which subsequently lead to one of them finally noticing there was a baby in the equation._

_"Well, looky here,"_

_Willis tried to stop him but wasn't fast enough when the massive hand surged out and tore Jason from him, making the baby squirm and cry._

_"No! No, get the fuck off him!" His protests were met with a fist to his gut, enough to make him double were it not for being held up against the wall. They hastily searched him then when seeing he had been telling the truth about having nothing on him, directed their attention to Jason, much to Willis'  horror. Every cell and nerve in his body was awake and terrified for what they might do to his son._

_"Let him go, please," Willis tried. He never begged for anything but this was a matter that making an exception to wasn't hesitant. The crooks sneered wickedly at him with bent and gapped teeth flashing. Seeing his overwhelming panic, the man holding Jason made to drop him, only to catch him near the same instant and cackled loudly at the reaction this gained from Willis. Almost having a cardiac arrest, his heart kicked into overdrive, hurting how hard it pounded, colour gone from his face._

_"Give him back to me, please. I - I'll do anything." And Willis meant that even when it was clear that their only remaining desire was to taunt him._

_"Aww, lookit, boys," The thug ran his fingers through Jason's fine strands of black hair, cupping the back of his head and disturbingly, working to soothe Jason's whimpers with the motion, well-versed enough in this to possibly have children of his own and that thought was horrifying. One of them patted the baby's cheek carelessly while the others examined him._

_"Sure is cute, Snake!"_

_Jason's captor - Snake - nodded in agreement, grin widening when he pushed his disgusting finger into the baby's delicate mouth and on instinct, he began suckling on it, getting a dirty chuckle from the man._

_"Guess we know what this kid'll be good at when he's older, don't we, boys?" They agreed with lewd comments and snickers that were revolting to hear and made Willis yank harder against the restraining, bruising hands, hurting himself but he didn't care._

_"Why not now?" The guy with the shotgun raised a brow of question, smirking when he took Jason to himself, holding his tiny body around the ribcage. Jason whimpered and squirmed, arms outstretched towards his father. Willis gave him a fake smile of reassurance._

_"Luke, you'll kill that thing if you try to get anything in its mouth now." Snake said out of humour and not an ounce of compassion or humanity. These people were fucking filth of the purest form._

_"Touch my son and you're fucking dead." Willis hissed, promised, fear for what they might do to Jason outweighed by the rage of them even discussing it._

_"Yeah?" Luke adjusted his hands around Jason. "And what're you gonna do?" He taunted and Willis again jerked uselessly at his arms, trying to free himself and get to his baby._

_"Boys, we're gonna have some fun here."_

_Just when Luke had something Willis could already tell would be terrible in mind, a sharp lighting-fast object sang when it cut through the air and sent the shotgun flying. The next thing any of them knew, was that a black mass dropped out of nowhere and started kicking the shit out of the thugs. Willis hardly noticed that or how he was suddenly freed, not when Luke dropping his son out of fright hit like a freight train._

* * *

 

By the shrill scream of pain and shifting of bone, Jason guessed he probably shattered the mugger's shoulders when he landed boots first on them from the fire escape. He fell easily as a lost Jenga game and the Hood directed his attention to the man's pals, a bunch of thuggish goons who thought it was an advantage to ambush a young woman who had a baby in a stroller. 

" _Go,_ " Jason ordered the woman, standing terrified by until he said that, then she nodded and went as quickly as she could, glancing over behind her. Jason cracked his knuckles, grinning from the cover of his hood to the men who sought to try this on his turf.

"Now, you wanna pick on someone your own size?" He didn't hide the amused tone when they thought they were an equal match for him.

"Geddim, Snake!" One of them yapped and who Jason presumed bore the retarded nickname of  _Snake_ , charged him, iron pole raised high above his head and ready to bring down.  Jason didn't waste a sidestep on him or a dodge and shot him in the knee with the gun he didn't take a heartbeat to grab from his belt. Snake howled when he went down with a spray of blood, his comrades staring at Jason with eyes wide with fear. 

Jason needed to do nothing but snap his teeth at them to send them running, only to plough a bullet into each of their legs when their backs were turned. Tauntingly, he strode after when they tried dragging themselves away from him, leaving behind long red paint-strokes of blood. Every time they slowed, if even a little, Jason shot at the ground by them to speed them along, laughing wickedly to himself each time.

Fuck, this was too funny!

"You guys seriously crack me up," Jason let them know, tears of merriment running down his masked face. "You shoulda gone for a career in stand-up comedy instead of mugging, although the 'stand-up' might be the hardest part right now."

"You're fucking crazy, Hood!" One of the scumbags sobbed but tried to hide his terror, only serving to amuse their tormentor more.

"Says the guys who thought pulling this shit on my territory was a good idea. You're lucky you're not dead." That was true and the only reason they weren't was the rule Bruce forced him to respect.  _Damn_  that rule. It was as irking as his biological father never saying a word to him about who his estranged grandmother was. Like, would it have been so hard? Sure, Ma was a crime lord and all that jazz but so was Jason! Dad had gotten really wound up by encountering Ma, the way Jason had only ever seen him get when he argued with Bruce over matters concerning him. Granted, they'd gradually learned to argue less but never entirely stopped and somehow, Jason felt if Bruce knew who his grandmother was both dads would be of a like mind and order him far away from her. Too bad Jason knew one wouldn't confide in the other for any reason.

He had that to his advantage, at least.

Fuck, he still couldn't believe who he was related to but he intended to find out why he had never been told. From the start, he didn't care about knowing this was a bad idea.


	2. Hanging With Granny

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thought we could do this in two chapters, but nope, so let's try three, yeah?

_Lightning reflexes. Batman was notorious for them and caught Jason after the thug dropped him but the baby wouldn't stop crying. He wouldn't. Willis couldn't soothe his petrified son's hysteria. The ghost of fingernails burying themselves into his arms burned where the crescent scars were, a memory triggered perhaps by finding himself on his mother's doorstep, a block from where those men could have killed his son._

_"Ma, I need your help." Words Willis never thought he'd say nor ones he ever wanted to but repressed instinct lead here. He was holding the screaming, flailing baby as tightly as he could. Ma Gunn was surprised to see him, that much was clear just by looking at her and the expression she made or was it the shock of seeing the grandson he'd never let her know existed?_

_"He - he won't stop crying." Shakily, Willis gestured to his son, shrieking red-faced in his arms. He didn't know what brought him here, why he was panicking or what lead up to Ma standing aside and letting him in. He wouldn't be the first parent whose inconsolable child lead them to fall back on a more experienced person. That close call where those men could have seriously injured Jason or done something terrible to him, it had Willis left running it through his head over and over, reliving it through the eyes of what if? What if Batman hadn't come and what if he hadn't caught the baby?_

_When did Ma take Jason from him? Willis doesn't know, he only realised it when the crying calms and she's bouncing the baby against her shoulder. She was facing his direction, lips moving to form words and with a start, Willis noticed she'd asked him a question._

_"What happened?" She asked, grim grey eyes looking over her glasses at him. One of her hands was on Jason's back, stroking soothing stripes there that transformed his wailing to whimpers._

_"Uh... There was a... a mugging. Sort of."_

_"Sort of?" She raised a silver brow._

_"They didn't take anything and Batman...." Willis trailed off when he realised he mentioned the forbidden B-word that made his mother's features tighten; the fingers on Jason curled, creasing his shirt._

_"You need Batman now?" The hostility when she asked that didn't go unheard and somehow, she turned that into an accusation._

_"Not me but J-" Willis indicated to his son, "-Jason could have gotten hurt."_

_"Jason?" Ma scoffed, rolling her eyes. "So that's his name. Good to know my grandson has one."_

_Willis' shoulders grew into a tenser line, balling the hands thrust into his pockets._

_"Ma, I didn't tell you about him...." Again, he lost his train of words when he became aware by Ma's expression, that she didn't care. No matter how gently she handled Jason, she didn't care. He was sure she didn't, hence why she never knew he existed.  As the shock of what almost happened began fading, he realised coming here had been a mistake. Jason wasn't crying anymore, Ma had worked her magic but she knew about him now._

_"I should go." Willis made to take his son back from her, but she sharply stepped back with the baby still against her shoulder. His eyes met his mother's with both question, caution, and wariness._

_"Give him to me." He said, a simple request he was making but she refused him it._

_"How old is he?" Ma asked. "One? He's quite light for his age." She tested Jason's weight in both hands. "And thin. I wonder, does he get enough to eat?"_

_Willis didn't like what she was insinuating. Not one bit. Was she really trying to lecture him on parenting? No. No, that wasn't her method of operation. There was definitely more to what she was leading to. There was an underlying reason to all of this. That was always the case with her._

_"I don't neglect him, mother, so fucking stop implying it."_

_"Don't you work eighteen hours a day?" Oh, wow! She knew his schedule? Only because it suited her to keep some tabs on what he did. Only, that didn't include ever finding out she had a grandchild._

_"He's with Catherine during the day." Willis retorted with bite to his words when he began to see what she was doing._

_"Catherine the drug addict? Darling, I don't think she's well enough to take care of a baby." Ma said to him with sympathetic concern so realistic that anyone who didn't know her would have believed she was just a worried grandmother, looking out for her grandson's wellbeing. Too bad he knew better._

_"As a bystander and his grandma, I feel duty-bound to let CPS know about this...."_

_Willis' fists clenched, opening and closing, teeth grinding together and wearing at the edges. Fucking bitch. If she did that, call CPS, she'd be deemed a hero for it because everything she said was correct and he had no defence. Jason would be carted off to some foster home where god knows what could happen to him. With his own parents in and out of jail, Willis himself had spent most of his childhood in either foster care or on the streets, one lead to the other, neither was better. Not in Gotham._

_"What. Do you want, Ma?" Willis asked in a low and dark tone, glaring at her with a set expression. Damn, he hated her. He hated her so much. He hoped she knew that._

_"Nothing, dear." Ma replied and never let up the passive act of feigning she wasn't threatening to have his baby taken away, Oscar-winning actress that she as._

_"Not yet. But, in case I do later....."_

_It was pretty obvious what she meant but wasn't saying. Later leverage, in case she ever needed him for anything he wouldn't normally be willing to do. Last time, before he cut all connections to her, it was skimming money from Two-Face. That was before Jason was born, though, before she had anything to hold over him. Fuck, he'd been an idiot to come here and expose Jason to her toxicity._

_Without another word to vocalise that she'd won, Willis put his hands around Jason's middle and lifted him to himself. Bless his oblivion to what was being discussed, Jason smiled sweetly at him, waving an uncoordinated hand in greeting._

_"Da!" His son beamed. Willis put him on his hip, stroking his hair while Jason drooled on him, attention span so limited he was now gazing at something off to the side and babbling in insensible baby-talk about it.  Willis glared at his mother and didn't have words to say that could describe how much hatred he had against her for bringing his son into this._

_"You should go now, dear." Ma advised and he gladly took the offer, but before he could leave with the front door slamming, she continued with this unhelpful tip,_

_"If Jason cries a lot at night, might I suggest letting him sleep next to you for  a bit? A child in early development benefits largely from additional time with an already absent parent. Children need contact with their parents to form trust. You want him to trust you, don't you?"_

_If he'd had a gun with, Willis couldn't promise he wouldn't have shot her. His loathing for her was criminal. After what she just said, she was now giving him parenting tips like she herself was ever Mother Theresa? He happens to remember multiple times he and his hoard of siblings didn't receive any the motherly wisdom that was now bestowed upon him._

_"Sure thing, mother." He said through a cage of clenched teeth and from over his shoulder, Jason waving to his grandmother. They went home._

_Ma never used that leverage she had over him. Never called on that favour but the idea that she threatened it was enough to sever anything left between them. So help him, Jason would never have anything to do with that bitch._

* * *

_Her idiot son wasn't home, working probably, and God knew where Catherine was overdosing when Ma opened their locked apartment door with a bobby pin and let herself in. She didn't have to look long before she found her tiny grandson, alone, unsupervised, playing and babbling to himself in something that certainly wasn't a toy; a cardboard box. She sighed and noticing her, without fear Jason smiled up at her from the sea of bubble wrap that was a choking hazard for a toddler._

_"C'mere," Ma grumbled when she bent to pick him up, his small arms already extended to her in expectation. A child's effortless trust was truly a marvel._

_"Has your moronic father and good-for-nothing mother left you all alone?" She asked him in the gentle coo of a voice she reserved for children while toying with his fine black hair. His smile only got larger and he waved an uncoordinated hand, patting her on the shoulder._

_"Well, don't you worry, Ma Gunn's gonna take care of you." She assured him._

_"Ma!" Jason exclaimed, proud of himself for the new word he had learned and Ma gave him the praise he deserved for the accomplishment in the form of making a fuss of him while she searched the fridge for baby food. When she found it, mashed peas and carrots in a small glass jar, Ma put her grandson in his highchair and strapped him safely in before warming the food up for him. Willis, if he was good for anything, fed Jason in the morning but knowing the useless whore he married, Catherine had let the child starve all day._

_Idiots the both of them.... Hopefully, that little threat of hers the other night would scare Willis into taking better care of his son unless he wanted CPS to get involved and if it came to that, Ma was going to take the munchkin in. No question, her offspring could fight her and her loaded shotgun on it._

_Ma tested the warmth of the food, room temperature was about right and returned to Jason. She sat next to him and extended a plastic spoon with the mush on it to him, plastic so it wouldn't hurt those new teeth of his. Jason's big eyes sparkled with expectancy and he flapped his arms like wings, making happy pants that confirmed his mother indeed, hadn't fed him. While she gave Jason the spoon, Ma wondered how personally her son would take it if she blew Catherine's head off with her trusty sawed-off. She'd killed people for fewer reasons than neglecting her grandson._

_"You like aeroplanes, Jason? Or trains?" Ma asked conversationally, the spoon taking a twisty scenic route to the baby's mouth._

_"Aeroplanes are for posh pricks like the Sionis family and their upstart brat of a son. I tell you, Jason, that one's gonna be trouble." Jason eagerly accepted another spoonful while she spoke. "But cars. Cars are what God intended for transportation. If people were meant to fly they'd be born with goddamn wings sticking out their asses." The baby giggled despite barely understanding her for a word she said._

_After dinner, she gave Jason a warm bath and scowled at how thin he was while he splashed about carelessly. When the water began to cool, Ma swaddled him in a soft pale blue towel then dressed him in the onesie she'd been keeping warm for him on top of the boiler. Energetic darling that he was, Jason kicked and fussed until she put him down. Hand-in-much-smaller-hand, they walked a couple laps around the apartment, practice in being bipedalled for Jason while Ma went along with it. Exercise done, Ma Gunn read Jason a chapter from Pride And Prejudice, a masterful work of fiction she wished she'd read to her own children as it might have increased their brainwave activity. Despite his menial year of life, Jason listened intently to the sound of her voice as if what she was saying all made sense to him, but afterwards, he did want to play with the handgun he found while rummaging through her purse. As a vigilant grandmother, Ma removed the clip and turned the safety on before she gave it to him._

_"Once you get bigger, I'll bring you a gun with bullets and we'll go to a shooting range." Ma promised and Jason babbled enthusiastically, drool sliding down the firearm in sheets while he sucked on its handle._

_A little while later that was hours after Ma arrived, she had her tiny grandson cradled in her arms, rocking him back and forth like a gentle breath to the embers of sleep stirring in him. Jason's eyelids were getting heavy and drooping, his breathing still and comfortable._

_"Sleep well, pequeño." Ma murmured, dropping a soft kiss onto Jason's forehead before laying him on his back, in his cot to rest. She had to manually uncurl his hand from around her finger when she let him go._

_Ma watched over him until she heard the front door open. Her son wouldn't be finished with work for a few hours still, so she had purpose when she walked up to Catherine, purpose and the hand that Ma slapped her across the face with ready. Without a word, she left, in her wake a content, cared-for baby and a well-earned bruise on her daughter-in-law's cheekbone, one she could cover with makeup. Ma was confident Catherine wouldn't say a word about any of this to Willis, not unless she wanted him to know she left his child unattended for hours._

_Catherine wasn't quite as retarded as her life choices might make you think. She made the right decision and thus gave Ma the opportunity to regularly spend the day with her grandson, unbeknownst to the father. The only times she didn't come was on the few occasions Catherine was actually present. On those occasions, Ma simply worked on her criminal empire._

_Jason's speech and motor skills saw an improvement over the next months, no doubt the product of Ma talking with him, teaching him words, and taking him for routine walks through the park. Last time, Jason had been chuffed by the fluffy yellow ducklings swimming in the pond._

_One afternoon, when Ma was going to meet who'd become the highlight of her life, she was walking down the apartment's lobby when she passed a blonde woman. A blonde woman with very nice facial structure, effortlessly beautiful with or without the slightest dusting of makeup, but her captivating appearance aside, Ma Gunn wouldn't have paid any attention to her if she hadn't been half walking, half dragging a raven-headed toddler with her by the arm. A toddler who was not happy, looking about ready to cry while he struggled and failed to keep up with her. He kept tripping, falling, then only to be hauled up by his flimsy limb._

_"C'mon, you little-" the blonde forgot what she was irritatedly saying to the child when she walked smack-bang into the gun Ma already had out of her purse._

_"Let go of my grandson, you blonde slag." Ma was dark in her tone, ready to fill the bitch with lead just for touching Jason._

_Blondie, although momentarily surprised by her abrupt intervention, got over it fast and tightened her fingers around Jason to a whimper from the boy when her nails pricked his skin. He pulled at his arm and she yanked him for it, thus tightening Ma's finger on the trigger._

_"This doesn't concern you, Faye." She said, her voice familiar and slowly, very slowly, Ma reasoned this must be Jason's biological mother. So snooping until she found Jason's birth certificate hadn't been a pointless endeavour, otherwise, she might not have known this was Sheila Haywood, the bitch herself._

_"I'm collecting my son." Sheila.... What was she doing back in Gotham? What did she want with Jason? Whatever it was, Ma's ability to foresee said it was disastrous. Jesus, it was so easy for Sheila to take the baby from the apartment like nobody's business, that it was quite evident neither parent was home, as per the usual. Ma was gonna give them both a crack across the face in the very near future._

_"Get your whorish hands off Jason before I blow them off." Ma threatened with a jerk of the gun, and it was no idle threat. Sheila's blue eyes narrowed on her, weighing her options as she knew there was no jesting going on here._

_".... What sort of settlement would convince you to let me take my baby with me?"_

_Ma whipped Sheila with the butt of the firearm, tearing the corner of her lip just for suggesting Jason could be bought. Sheila stumbled from the blow, far enough for Ma to scoop Jason up in one arm and aim to lodge a bullet in his mother's skull, a shot she would have gladly taken, had she been willing to traumatise her grandchild._

_"Do you see a price tag on his head, hussy? No? Then he bloody well isn't for sale."_

_Sheila glared venomously, one hand on the wall for balance and the other over that damn mouth, blood as red as her lipstick budding from the abrasion._

_"He's mine." She growled._

_"And your ass is mine if you ever come anywhere near Jason again. Touch him, hurt him, look at him, think about him, and I put the Maronis' work to shame when I melt that slut face of yours. I will break every fucking bone you have! And afterwards.... I'll kill you."  Ma snarled too and she knew she was much scarier than Sheila, maybe because she had the fire of violence to back her up. And while Sheila could be violent as well....  that was exclusively toward children. Someone her own size was another ballpark._

_"You can't keep an eye on him forever."_

_"No, but you better keep one on your six." With that, Ma chased Sheila off at gunpoint, with a quick phone call sending a trio of her lackeys to kill her, except the bitch was quick to vanish. A hit was placed on her, is she ever dared return to the city. Ma tried to find out what she wanted Jason for but that came up zero, although she presumed it was something to do with her unending feud with Willis, which their child absolutely had to be literally dragged into._

_Ma didn't trust Sheila to be smart enough to heed her warning and posted her underlings outside the building, men who were made well aware they would be castrated if they let anyone who wasn't Willis, Catherine, or Ma herself to leave with Jason. Lo and behold, it turned out to be necessary for the times Sheila sent her goons to kidnap her son. Ma had all of them killed but one, and that was just to pass on the message to Sheila that next time it would be her whose head showed up in a duffel bag._

_As it turns out, Ma's men didn't like 'babysitting' as they called it, and when she was arrested thanks to Batman,  they slacked off on their duties to guard Jason, which is the sole reason dirt like Fischer ever got to lay a slimy hand on him. When she got out the joint at the end of her sentence, the first thing Ma did was look for her grandchild. Meanwhile, those slackers were beaten to death and like she promised, got their balls ripped off. Next? After she found out what the neighbour did to Jason, she put everything into tracking the man down and personally flaying him. She had a knife ready. Except he was a cockroach, a naturally good hider, and while that was a work-in-progress,  she went about doing something equally important. If not more so._

_It took a while but Ma found what most would assume upon first glance, was nothing but a feral boy, knelt in an alleyway, sniffing, trying not to cry, with hands shaking from the freezing winter cold, gathering crumpled wet dollars off the rain-drenched pavement, dollars the man who was zipping up his fly as he walked away threw at him. Ma saw red, red as Carrie on prom night and her shotgun meant the man would be too dead to defile a child ever again._

_Bang!_

_"Jason," Ma said when the man's body hit the ground in pieces. She stepped over the meaty trash and approached Jason; the boy's eyes were wide with fear and he backed away from her, shying into the brick wall behind him. He was nine now, he didn't remember her..... God, she couldn't reminisce on how big he'd gotten, when he was still so tiny for his age._

_"Jason, sweetheart, I'm not going to hurt you." She adopted the same calm, quiet voice she used to talk to him in and looked him sincerely in his frightened eyes, kneeling a meter away, putting her shotgun on the ground beside her._

_"Please, let's get out of this rain," Ma extended her hand carefully, at a distance that meant he would have to meet her halfway to take it._

_"I - I don't wanna go w - with you-" Jason stammered, stumbling for words that didn't stabilise with how badly he was shivering. His lips were swollen, blotchy and blue from biting down on them and tear streaks glistened in trails down his cheeks._

_"You don't have to. It's your choice." Ma wasn't going to make him do anything he didn't want to, fuck knows enough adults already had, but she also wasn't going to leave him alone. If Jason wanted to stay here, in Crime Alley, then Ma and her shotgun would be his shadow._

_"But you look cold." She observed and Jason gave a jerky nod, bitten through lip quivering heartbreakingly._

_"Will you come with me, Jason? You're not going to get hurt. I promise."_

_"Th - that's wh - what Mr F - Fischer s - said-" Head falling to be held in the shaking cradle of his hands, pulling at his hair, ripping it out, a new wave of hyperventilation came with what Ma knew he was thinking back on. Rage bubbled in her but she couldn't let it show and risk scaring her grandson worse. She was dying to bleed Fischer for doing this to her  grandchild._

_"I'm going to make sure Fischer never comes near you again."_

_It was as if Jason didn't hear her over his crying, not until he could console himself somewhat. When he looked up after entire minutes, a fresh stream of blood from his chewed-up lip was dribbling down his chin, contrasting against his colourless skin._

_"Y - you promise?" Jason tearily asked with the tiny dying bit in him that still trusted tempted to let someone save him._

_"Yes, Jason. I promise." Ma had never meant anything she said more in her life, and the last letter of the sentence is when Jason hesitantly took her hand. He was still crying when Ma carefully pulled her grandson into her arms, looping them around him and cupping the back of his head, stroking his soaking wet hair soothingly as he shook._

_"I'm going to make sure no one hurts you again, darling," Ma whispered, emotion heavy in her own voice. She wanted to tell him who she was so bad, that she was his grandmother and she would keep him safe,  but....his parents had neglected and abandoned him, both now dead as far as she knew, and God knows if Jason remembered anything about his monstrous birth mother._

_With all those factors, Jason was very unlikely to trust anyone who was family. He had a reason not to._

_"My name is Faye, Jason."_

* * *

 

Jason was a natural at interfering. If it wasn't his business then his snooping would ensure he knew more about the subject matter than the person it involved. It wasn't exactly a skill Bruce taught him, rather one he'd perfected on the streets, but it would be a lie to say the Bat never found it useful. Of course, it did backfire on Bat-dad during those times that Jason had grudges to carry out and the threat of exposing some dirty laundry to hang over the old man was very satisfying. 

Almost as satisfying as doing something he wasn't allowed to.

"Grandma Gunn, why d'you hate dad?"

Ma sighed dramatically when finally she stopped ignoring her grandson and heavily put down the shotgun she was cleaning. Sitting on the edge of her work surface - the kitchen side - Jason kicked his legs while waiting for her to respond.

"I don't  _hate_  your father, Jason. I just don't find his existence necessary."

"Okay...." Jason sucked thoughtfully on his scarred lower lip. ".... Why does dad hate you?"

"Probably because I don't have time for the nonsense he's made up of on a cellular level." 

Jason briefly considered that and could agree, he'd been in a similar mind state at one or other point in time. It was both sad and pleasing to know that all his character flaws were genetic and he was the product of his heritage. A, he couldn't fix what was wrong with him which was depressing.... but  _B_ , it meant he wasn't  _really_  the blame for anything he did, but his DNA was. He wondered if that would hold up in a court of law or Bruce's perspective.

"Then if you don't  _hate_  dad, but also don't think there's a reason for him to be alive, and he hates you, why don't you hate  _moi_?" 

Ma gave him a look that said he was overlooking the obvious. "Because you're my grandson."

"But dad's  _your_  son."

"And I regret the C-section I was put through." She bluntly said and before Jason could interject or ask more of the questions teetering on the edge of his teeth, she selected a handgun from the firearms lined up next to her and dropped it into his lap.

"Disassemble and clean it." The order was simple, second nature and obediently, Jason went about taking the gun apart with practised ease, scrubbing the individual pieces with a reel cloth.

"You got any WD-40?" Jason asked after some while of wholesome grandmother/grandson weapons maintaining passed. He looked for the can of spray oil he expected her to have on her table, but instead, she gave him a dull metallic can with no label on it.

"We don't use  _WD-40,_  Jason. Don't be a peasant -  _or_  your father.  _This_ ," she gestured to the thing she offered, "Is an old family recipe, invented and improved upon since 1852 when our arms wielding forefathers came over from Ireland and married into Latin-America." 

Lips parted, eyes wide, Jason accepted the can with a sense of awe as he imagined what his grandma told him.

" _Really_?" He gaped. "I didn't realise I had any family history. Dad never mentioned it." 

"That's because your father doesn't care for heritage. It's bootless to him." Ma grumbled another slew of complaints about the person in question. 

"I'd love it if you two got along." Jason said with an obvious, shameless hint he was hoping she picked up on. She was a crime lord, she was smart, but she ignored it like a pro.... or someone with kids.

"We're just fine not seeing eye-to-eye." Ma told him, reassembling her shotgun. That thing had some years on it. Jason didn't think he'd ever seen her without it.

Seeing she wouldn't budge, Jason sighed under his breath while he worked the Gunn/Todd magic gun oil into the inner mechanism of the weapon in his hands. Another bout of silence went by, this one longer than the last before one of them spoke up,

"Does your father know you're here?" Ma asked, not looking away from cleaning black grease off her hands on a worn rag so visual contact was up to Jason. 

"Nah. He thinks I'm on patrol. Bats wanted something from him, so that's where dad is right now. Info about some gig of Two-Face's that happened years and years ago and concerns some case Bat-dad is working on. Bio-dad knows a lot about crime in Gotham, shit even _Batman_ doesn't know." Jason wasn't sure why he told Ma Gunn all of that, only that she nodded slowly through it but hardly listened to a word. Something else was on her mind.

"Jason.... the reason your father and I don't get along is that we have no familial relationship." Ma finally stopped tending to her guns and acknowledged her grandchild sitting on the counter with her intent grey eyes fixing on him. 

"I was running my criminal empire and he didn't want to be a part of it. Not that I can hold him for that."

"..... But dad's a criminal, too. What difference does it make?" 

"He didn't want to be a part of  _my_  empire. Two-Face, the Hoods, they were more appealing." 

"I guess I do see the grass-is-greener thing. Being a Hood rocks. Being  _the_  Hood, well, that's a much sicker gig." Jason grinned at her while she tried interpreting the gang sign he put up only to confuse her for a few seconds before she pushed it out of care. 

"And as for my half of the feud.... personally, I think your father  _could_  and  _should_  have cared for you better during your childhood. But then I can't say that to him without one of those defensive self-righteous fits of his, as I myself wasn't what you might call.... a wonderful mother. What comes by as hypocrisy to him, is me being more experienced in the ways in which not to treat a child." Ma sighed softly at the end there, cleaned away her guns, and bent to take her cookies out of the oven. What a model worthy grandma. 

Jason watcher her for a short period of time before interjecting his own opinion again. 

"So,  _basically_ , the reason you two are fighting is because you're both sucky parents?" 

"Essentially." Ma lifted the oven tray onto the counter, blowing on the steaming cookies. 

"Jesus, parents and grandparents make everything twice as difficult as it needs to be." Rolling his eyes, Jason grumbled, hopping off the side and grabbing a handful of scalding cookies, saved from third degree burns only by the grace of his kevlar gloves. He headed for the door with biscuits and purpose.

"Where are you going, grandchild?" Ma asked over her shoulder while Jason walked, blowing on a hijacked snack of his as he went.

"To find dad and fix this shitstorm of you two's, 'cause I got to do everything around here!" 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love Ma. She's really just your regular gun-slinging crime lord grandma who breaks into her son's apartment to let her grandchild play with firearms and teach him curse words.... yeah, now that I think about it, Jason's problem is definitely hereditary.


	3. The Halfway Point

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just HAD to finish this today. I hate having more than two incomplete fics.

"I already told you,  _Wayne_." Willis tipped his head back with a deep, frustrated sigh that came with too many hours of being awake. "Two-Face  _wasn't_  working with the Riddler at any point in 2000. That came in  _2002_  and Nygma stabbed Dent in the back halfway through their agreement. Dent was really bitter so I  _highly_  doubt he'd ever work with 'im again."

"There's evidence of them working together in Bludhaven recently. Are you saying Nightwing is lying?"

"You said it, not me." Willis shrugged and incited a grumble of annoyance from Bruce when he turned back to the computer monitor. They'd both been awake for way too long with this damn case that was not  _his_  problem. And yet here he persisted to be. Why that was, he couldn't begin to say.

".....  _But_ , I recall an incident where Dent did some work for Sionis," Slowly at first, Willis cut into the silence when a possibility dawned on him, "And correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Nygma do odd jobs for that skull-faced fucker?"

Realising where he was going with this, eyes widening with an _mhh_ , Bruce saw it too now that he pointed it out and he nodded his agreement.

"If they're in Sionis' payroll, then it's in their best interests to put grudges aside cooperate if they want payment. Which means...." Midway through saying that, Bruce started doing something Willis didn't really understand on his computer, so he finished the sentence instead,

"You just gotta figure out what  _Black Mask_  is doing in Bludhaven.... What,  _no_  high-five?"

Bruce pretended he didn't exist then and kept speaking, though mostly to himself.

"A supply of Kryptonian weaponry has recently been stolen from STAR labs-"

 _Bang_! The grandfather clock flew open and in the time it took for both of them to look in its direction, their son was descending the steps four at a time, practically bounding. 

"Jas-"

"No time to chat, dads." Jason came over in a hurry, not explaining himself before he grabbed Willis around the middle and with shameful ease, picked him up clean off the ground.

"Jason, what the fuck-?!" Willis struggled, tried to get loose but couldn't, not with his kid's unlawfully strong arm about him. How  _embarrassing_.

"Jason, _what_ are you doing?" Turning in his chair, Bruce asked, visibly confused as to why Jason was carrying his father around like a pocketbook, especially with his very vocal protesting that his son was by no means, oblivious to. If anything, it incited wicked joy from him.

"I'm gonna go meet grandma and I need dad to come with," Jason explained while another hand snaked around Willis to hold him still, pinning his arms to his sides and Jason rested his chin on his father's head.

"You have a _grandmother_ now?" Bruce arched a brow, feeling unwell at that horrible notion of more people from this family existing. 

Jason nodded enthusiastically to his question while, yet again, tightening his hold on Willis, still trying to get down. He must be squeezing the breath out of him, which may be why he was now rather quiet.

"She's an angry old bitch, kinda scary with a massive shotgun, goes by Faye Gunn - you might know her." He smiled there, mischievously since he relished in the way Bruce's face fell when realisation dawned and the words processed.

" _Faye Gunn_ is your  _grandmother_?" Jason had never seen Bruce gape but here he was; _gaping_. He guessed all those background checks the old man had run on his family weren't quite as telling as he'd thought.

"And she's your  _mother_?" Bruce's extended index moved to Willis, who by now had accepted that he couldn't get free and surrendered, nodding unhappily to answer the question. Bruce ran his hand through his hair, resting both elbows on the computer table and he sighed very, _very_ deeply.

"That explains  _so much_  about both of you...." He didn't lift his head from his hands, as if defeat had finally conquered the Bat, or perhaps it was him realising there truly was no hope for Jason to ever go on the straight and narrow with such powerful lawbreaker blood flowing through his veins. Not only was there  _no_  hope but there had also  _never_  been hope and Bruce was probably going through the motions that came with understanding the hours upon hours of lectures he'd given Jason had all been for nought. Not a _word_ had ever gone through.

" _So_... I'm gonna go see grandma Gunn, dad's coming with me, you stay here with your ah-ha moment but don't think too much on  _it_." Knowing what was going on Bruce's head, Jason pursed his lips, thinking of a final goodbye statement that would be fitting, but then ended up just waving over his shoulder with a quick,

"Ta then, other dad! Have fun realising everything you've ever tried to teach me about morals was a _complete_ and _utter_ waste of breath!"

* * *

 

The moment Ma received a call for her dear grandson, asking her to come to the city line and be urgent about it, she had her shotgun in hand to deal with what she perceived as an emergency. Jason rarely called for backup but when he did, it was bad. She was there in two ticks, ready to pound lead into whoever dared threaten the only non-disappointing descended she had, then only to be massively surprised to find Willis with Jason, the way Jason had both his wrists held in one hand, clearly he was here against his will.

"Grandbaby, what the ever loving _fuck_ are you doing?" Sceptical, Ma cocked a brow, frowning when she approached, Jason waving her over.

"It's a family get-together." Smiling widely, Jason gestured with his free arm, still holding his father captive and it was effortless for him to do it.

"Ma, the sex-fruit's gone nuts." Willis muttered, long since given up trying to escape and just stood with an unamused expression as his own mother joined the chat, as unhappy to be there as he was and now Jason was frowning too, but that was at what he was just called.

"He's  _your_  son." Ma gave the accusatory grumble in response, putting her gun on her shoulder. "I'm only twenty-five per cent responsible. Fifty is _your_ fault."

"And you're to blame for both of us."

"I am increasingly aware." Her eyes narrowed on him and she stopped a meter away, sizing them down.

"Now what the fuck is this thing you're doing?"

Partially ignoring her inquiry, Jason went on of his own accord,

"I have a thought... You guys both _suck_ as parents. Like, you guys suck more than I did during my formative years." Both Ma and Willis scowled at that point. "But that aside, we all have one thing in common.... Do you know what that is?"

They stayed silent for a moment, hesitant to indulge him but Willis caved with a sigh before long.

" _What_ , Jason? We're  _related_?"

" _Wrong_! We've all seen me naked. Isn't that something we should be bonding over?" Jason couldn't be smiling any wider and both his genetic donors stared at him, disbelieving that was the hard-hitting logic behind the point he was trying to make.  

"It ain't that simple, kiddo," Willis said, pinching the bridge of his nose, exhaling, and Jason could tell Ma was of a like mind with him as far as reacting to this went. Except she didn't express it as visibly, not that Jason cared at all. He shrugged one shoulder.

"It's gotta be."

"It isn't." 

Jason nipped at his lip, eyeing them in narrowing consideration, arms folded as he stood opposite. Beside him, there was the gym bag he'd dropped upon arrival and he bent, reaching into it and taking a second to locate his helmet. When he straightened and regained visual contact with his father and grandmother, both silently questioning him, Jason pushed the hood over his head and locked it into place. The inner mechanism whirred to life and lit up the hollow dark eyes.

" _Now_ what are you doing, grandchild?" Ma arched a silvery brow, refusing to full on express that she was confused by him. Willis was too, so there was a second thing they could relate to.

"Funny you should ask that." From the pouches of the belt he rarely took off, Jason retrieved the remote that operated certain aspects of his helmet that were rather precarious. Such as the explosives built into the fine inner lining of the helmet, small but they packed a cranium-destroying punch. 

"I'm gonna blow my head off if you two don't apologise to one another for always being selfish jerks."

Not taking him for his word, Willis rolled his eyes. "Jason, stop being dramatic and let's go back to the city." Glaring at him viciously, Jason plunged the dead man's switch spitefully because his dad didn't take his threat seriously. Immediately, the high-pitched wail of the bombs being triggered and set to the timer went off, giving his family members a start when they realised he meant it. 

" _Jason_ -!" One - or both - of them exclaimed in a sudden panic, and to stop them tearing his helmet off, Jason bounded up the nearby tree like a cat and settled in its branches, too high for them to reach him, taking the remote with him. 

"Jason _get_ down!" His dad yelled at him while Jason leaned comfortably back against the tree trunk, taking his sweet time to look down at them. They were playing a dangerous game with his stubborn nature and theirs clashing.

"For _once_ I agree with your idiot father."

"Grandma, I've noticed you never call dad by his name. It's kinda weird." He was fully aware they were worried and anxious, but irritating them by paying the issue at hand no attention is what he lived for. It was more fun than pissing Bruce off because Willis and Ma knew they were wholly responsible for his existence. This was their fault.

And they fucking _knew_ _it_. 

Like well-trained parents, they realised quickly that he wasn't gonna comply before he got his way.

"Mom, he's really gonna blow his fucking head off." Willis turned to Ma with an expression that didn't have a name, but it he appeared to be done and asking himself why he ever had children. They both must be and it wasn't a bad question to face, all things considered. 

"See, _this_ is what happens when you mix  _your_  genetics with a blonde who's spent more money on implants than understanding how the world works." Ma grumbled, cocked her shotgun with a gritted jaw, and shot the branch that was Jason's perch.  _Thud_. Jason's master plan was put to the challenge when he fell the few meters back on the ground he'd been standing on minutes ago, the branch falling a foot away. He really didn't think that all the way to the finish line.

Groaning, Jason sat up, then collecting his thoughts, he tried to scramble away but Willis caught him before he got far while Ma unlocked his helmet, disturbingly familiar with how it worked and tossed it into the distant bushes. Almost at once, it blew up and a tree went up in flames. Willis and his mother alike stared, having thought that there was only a _tiny_ chance that Jason was being serious or the bombs were phoneys, at least. But no. Of course not.

" _God_ , you're extra." Willis sighed, hand carding through his hair when then moment hit that his son would rather die of self-inflicted decapitation than not have his way. This was not a moment that any other parent could relate to and that made it hurt twice as bad. This was an exclusive problem that he caused.

"It's you two's fault." Jason grumbled, rubbing at his back, made tender and bruised from the fall. He looked seriously moody, like a sulking pouty child. At what he said, Willis and Ma exchanged a glance that for the first time in years wasn't a glare. It was a silent mutual agreement. 

"It comes from Sheila's side." Ma quickly said and Willis was of a like mind with a hearty, immediate nod.

" _Definitely_. That bitch was crazy."

"I know. I've met her."

Jason snickered into his palm, eyes sparkling mischievously, evilly almost as he grinned up at them with the points of his teeth showing as if he'd won a game no one else was aware of.

"I got you to work together  _and_  agree on something!"

Ma and Willis sighed.

* * *

 

Bruce almost choked on his coffee when not one, not two, but  _three_  members of the Todd-Gunn family stepped in turn into the kitchen. Strolling casually, Jason's face was split into a wide roguish grin while his father and grandmother didn't appear too pleased with him. The shock of their sudden appearance aside, Bruce was silently enjoying someone else taking the brunt of Jason's shenanigans. As his blood relatives, it served them correctly to know what they'd caused.

"Wayne, your son is demented." Willis huffed, walking a few strides ahead of Jason and he sat heavily opposite Bruce, head cradled in his hands and a long shallow sigh escaping his lips.

"He's  _my_  son now?" Bruce smirked, raising his mug to his mouth.

" _Yes_ , he is." Willis glared coldly through his parted fingers at Bruce. "I had him for five years, you had him for  _eight_."

"Oh, stop being immature." Ma Gunn sat next to her son, putting her hand on his back in a nearly comforting gesture and giving Bruce her cynical icy leer, much like her son's _and_ grandson's. So _she_ was where it all went wrong....

"But we do blame you."

"For what?"

Before she replied, Jason finally joined them, except he didn't use a chair - which there were plenty of - and slung himself over Bruce's lap, arm around his neck and casual as one could be, like this was normal. Except anything but was commonplace for him.

"They're just pissed because I nearly blew my head off." Jason said, yawned, and rested his head on Bruce's shoulder as if the day had left him tired.

"You realise this sort of thing is  _normal_ for Jason, don't you?" Shaking his head at their lack of knowledge, Bruce asked, holding onto Jason so he wouldn't fall and adjusted him into a position more comfortable for both of them since Jason insisted on sitting on him.

"Now _why_ did you bring a crime boss into my home?" Bruce asked and Willis hadn't yet lifted his head to meet his line of sight when spoken to. 

"Which one?" He grunted, voice muffled and Bruce's jaw clamped shut with a click against further questions. That was a moot point. The man had extremely poor genetics. _Thank fuck_ he only had one kid to pass them onto.

" _So_...." Bruce's eyes went between Willis and his mother, awkwardly, rapping his fingers against Jason's curved spine in a pattern that didn't count for anything. What was he supposed to say?

"What-"

"Okay, everyone stop with the crap," Jason straightened with a renewed burst of energy and cut Bruce off with the usual amount of manners he possessed. 

"We gotta talk about custody." He swung his legs to the front, resting against Bruce's chest and both hands flat on the tabletop.

"When do I annoy who? Who gets to enjoy me when? Grandma, dad, or dad, who wants me for weekends?"

"Grandchild, you are an adult. Do whatever you wan-" Both Willis and Bruce shushed Ma insistently with hand gestures and quiet pleas.

"Mom,  _do not_  finish that sentence." Willis urged with a note of desperation when a sly grin was already taking up residence on Jason's features. Seeing the warning signs, Bruce made an inescapable barrier around Jason's middle with his arm, restraining him from enacting any of the ten stupid ideas that just went through his head. Jason made an unhappy irritated huffing noise and leaned back against Bruce, scowling to himself. 

"Wayne," Ma spoke up, watching her grandson from the corner of her eye, "while we're here, I need Batman to not be in the harbour on Tuesday evening." Bruce didn't ask how she knew his secret identity, only it didn't surprise him but what she said sparked a certain air of reasonable caution.

" _Why_...?"

"Wayne,  _don't_  trust her," Willis interjected, "she wouldn't be tellin' you that if she weren't up to somethin' else." He knew his mother better than most and Bruce believe him but wouldn't have bought that even without his opinion on the matter. He'd learned from raising Jason what tone to a sentence immediately made it suspicious, especially when it concerned this particular breed of people. He really didn't want to think about the fact that Bruce knew Willis had a lot of siblings, which meant Jason had cousins, which meant there was  _more_  of them.

"I know that." Bruce's gaze narrowed on Ma Gunn and somehow, she stared him down with far exceeding intensity despite being considerably smaller in stature. He was beginning to understand why so many people were afraid of her. 

"Mother, while you're present and accountable," Willis turned to her in a desperate attempt to change the topic from what criminal activity she was planning now to another of them. "Wayne's working a case where Black Mask is up to somethin' in Bludhaven. You wouldn't happen to know anythin' about that, would you?"

"Of course not." Ma responded, curt as ever. Distrusting of her, Willis pursed his lips in thought, glancing in Bruce direction and Bruce gave him the nod to go ahead.

"Consider this, if Wayne is busting Sionis' ass for whatever shit he's up to now, then he's gonna make Jay go  with him an' he won't pestering you about this fucking amends-thing he's currently obsessed with." So _that_ was the point of their earlier meeting. How odd that Jason wanted them to get along, Bruce thought, when they so clearly never would but the prospect Willis presented certainly intrigued Ma, enough to cooperate, at least.

"Well, now that you  _mention_  it..." Ma's fingers laced tighter together, already white-knuckled before her on the table. "I happen to know a thing or two about what Roman has gotten into his head now."

" _Of course_ you do." Willis rolled his eyes, looking elsewhere but Bruce ignored his reaction, unwittingly leaning closer to hear what Ma had to tell him for the cost of keeping Jason's hopes and dreams of a functioning family far from her.

While the  _adults_  spoke about crime in Gotham and spilling the nitty-gritty on Black Mask's latest schemes, Jason became increasingly aware that no one was paying him an ounce of attention. In fact, his fathers and grandma were talking like he wasn't even there or that he was a dozing infant who couldn't make out a word. He didn't like being ignored.

Jason carefully unwound Bruce's arm around him, to the old man's unbeknownst when he was so invested in all the various things Ma knew about pretty much everything, it sounded. Unnoticed, Jason padded silently away from them, thinking  _this_  - his family gathered around the same table, chatting about local criminal enterprises and mob bosses - was about the nearest thing to a normal family he was gonna achieve. 

Honestly, Jason wasn't sure he could handle if Ma and Willis got along swimmingly, they might make like Willis and Bruce did every-now-and-again, and unite _against_ Jason. They really did do that. They ganged up on him to stop him from going through with the very sensible,  _not_  reckless, well-thought-out plans of his. Last week it was about how he could  _not_  trade food's nutrients and vitamins for gasoline because with how the economy was, it was cheaper. Neither dad could tell what a joke was and he certainly hoped Ma wasn't getting on the 'make everything boring for Jason' train with an occupation of two already.

Grinning to himself, Jason ventured into the cave and grabbed the key to the batmobile since it was still very much in his plan to make his parents and grandmother pay attention to him over whatever shit Sionis was now pulling. Driving through a mall might do the trick.... or should he forget that and go see if Artemis and Bizarro wanted to break something with him? They were always up to stir up a good bit of trouble, even if it was to fuel the attention whore in Jason. 

Shivering to himself in anticipation, Jason couldn't decide which of the many options laid before him he should pick from. They'd all simultaneously piss his dear family off....  _but_ , they still hadn't given him what he wanted.

Oh, they were gonna be  _so_  sorry for that. Mwhahaha.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a really short chapter for moi, but I hope that's fine, not much left to write about except man, that's one effed up family XD

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea how to link my Tumblr like a pro, so I'm doing it the old fashioned way 
> 
> https://www.tumblr.com/blog/guillotinedr3ams
> 
> just in case anyone for some reason wants to message me or know what my disturbed face looks like XD


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